


Once, Twice

by insistentbass



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Disturbing Themes, Drug Use, M/M, One-Sided Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Oops, it's not that bad honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-05
Updated: 2014-05-05
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:49:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1568384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insistentbass/pseuds/insistentbass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'The world is falling sideways and moaning into bright sparky darkness, all is black yet a thousand colours strong. Sherlock tilts with it and moves his body along the path of nothingness until he hits the floor. '</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once, Twice

**Author's Note:**

> Ohh. I didn't mean to write this. 'twas supposed to be some Johnlock then bad things happened. Cautionary warnings - drug use, distressing themes/manipulation on both sides, bit of cursing. Let's just say my detectives are both a little messed up here. All consensual though. Oof, sorry John.
> 
>  
> 
> x

The world is falling sideways and moaning into bright sparky darkness, all is black yet a thousand colours strong. Sherlock tilts with it and moves his body along the path of nothingness until he hits the floor.

Baker Street is empty but every object in it screams at him, anguished cries and tumbling words from the carpet burns staining his knees. He's bouncing off the walls of a padded hell, and it’s pitch black in there, so opaque he can’t see his own hands. The floor feels invisible - and can you even _feel_ invisible? - but he knows it's there, it has to be, and Sherlock has to get up off it.

 _Get up. Get up._ Two more breaths -

One. Two.

Sherlock doesn't quite make it to upright though he manages somehow to get his phone. Somewhere outside in the real world (or is it the fake one) a siren goes off and he turns his head so quick the bones crack. He almost forgets what he's doing but the vibration of his phone turning on reminds him. He scrolls for a number but there’s only one, really. It would be on speed dial if he felt the need for one. Lestrade will come because he’s curious and keen, strong but weak in so many ways. And Sherlock can use that - he does it all the time without a thought, because hearts are meaningless to him when they're not surrounded by light; bright and true and guiding.

Sherlock fumbles and moves the pad of his thumb over artificial letters until it half makes sense, some of the words are mismatched and backwards but Lestrade will understand. He will know (even if he sometimes gets it wrong) and he’ll drop his entire life to be there, just in case this time _he_ is the one who saves Sherlock Holmes.

He never will be.

Fuck, though. He really cannot move. If space was a real concept to him Sherlock could honestly say, right now, he's in it. Getting pulled by the skull deep into the vacuum, falling into the stars that he once called beautiful but are now burning tiny holes into his eyes. Approaching the event horizon where nothing will ever happen.

Some significant amount of time must have passed between that thought and now - he's suddenly being hauled up by his armpits and there are strong hands moving his legs and torso up onto the sofa, there's short sooty grey hair in front of his face and a blanket (not his) being thrown over him.

"Sherlock, oi, I said are you here?"

The detective is sat opposite him, has dragged John's chair closer to the sofa and Sherlock almost wants to tell him to get off it, but finds he can't speak or do anything but nod as confirmation of his existence. Lestrade’s fingers are fleshy blurs in front of him, waving there. Sherlock feels as if he’s locked in a glass cabinet, looking at him through misty reflections.

"I'm going to get you some water and then you'll tell me why you keep doing this to yourself. Can you drink it?"

Sherlock nods again, it's all he can physically manage plus Lestrade seems less irate than usual and as if he's actually been expecting it. And that annoys him, a bit, if he could muster the capacity to express it. Predictable is the last thing he wants to be. He takes the glass in a spasming hand and drinks through tiny sips, feels like a child for a glorious moment and wonders what mother would think if she saw him now - strung out and higher than he’s been for years, real years, with matted hair and wandering eyes and a head full of unforgivable things.

Sherlock thinks that maybe, _maybe_ she would be the only one to understand.

"So come on then. I'm asking you now because I know you can't lie to me in this state"

It takes him a few seconds to figure out which way round he is, where his legs finish and his feet begin, but eventually he’s able to shift himself from his sprawled out position; clear his vision just enough to get a look at Lestrade and see if he can get away with anything. In the low light Sherlock sees the face he’s always seen - understanding even when it isn’t, lined with all the cruel things in the world that normal people don’t get to see, kind and honest eyes that Sherlock has always trusted.

"You already know"

Sherlock can hear himself speaking, as if it’s recorded and being played back in his head, odd and distant in a way that literally makes him shudder.

"Yes, I do”

Papers and empty cups and some kind of device (scales?) litter the floor so Sherlock tries to focus on them, recites material properties and dimensions and attempts to recollect what the hell he’s been doing for eight hours. The more he tries not to look at Lestrade the harder it is. The whites of his newly spruced teeth and the upturn of his left collar are so frustrating it’s difficult not to stare, to narrow his eyes, actually reach out to thumb the thing down.

Which he does, apparently - he can see his autonomous digit there, black cotton a contrast to his pale skin.

Lestrade leans forward, puts the knuckles of his right hand just against Sherlock’s carpet burnt knee. His bones are rounded and strong, and Sherlock can feel them even though he can’t actually feel himself. The drugs in his system wane and glow and fight for attention.

“You need to kill it, Sherlock”

It almost sounds like an order but there’s a sadness, an inevitability that makes him want to crawl on his all fours right out of Baker Street and into the risky hands of midnight. Except with every second Lestrade seems to be closer, or perhaps he just sharpens a bit, becoming not black and white but tinged with colour; then just like that he’s bleeding with it, it's carving river lines down his face, the most absorbing thing in the room.

“Kill that hope you have, that John’s going to walk in here and stay”

Sherlock groans and doesn’t bother to conceal the knife edge as the truth stabs into him, finds his head dipping forward until his brow brushes the tops of Lestrade’s seeking knuckles. They’ve been in this position before, of course - no case, boring case, easy case, _don’t make me search you_ \- but this time the drugs aren’t working right, there’s no buzz and fizz just endless pain that’s also numb, like the desire to itch a phantom limb. Except the limb is alive and well living somewhere else with someone else and Sherlock can’t just patch it up and carry on.

“I’m sorry, really, but that’s it. You need to let go”

But that isn’t it, it can’t be it, Sherlock fucking _knows_ from the peeling wallpaper in his mind palace to the tips of his bloody toes that it _cannot_ be it. There is always more. The game is always on. John is always there. And right now he does not need to let go - no, he needs a distraction, he needs a reason to be awake and conscious and breathing, or else he’ll simply stop altogether.

 _Now_ he needs to cling onto whatever is in his orbit and suck the life right from it.

“That’s not what I want, detective”

Oh his words are still slurry but they’re determined, set forth strong into the breathing space between them as he lifts his head. Sherlock takes in the shadow of stubble on his chin and the smell of breath mints, the twitch of the fist that’s pressing a little harder into the joint of his knee. Those pupils, still dark and concealed and now dilated; the minute ghost of a craving that Sherlock hasn’t seen for nearly four years.

“No?”

Perhaps not actually a question but Sherlock takes it as one; slides forwards until he’s barely on the sofa anymore, pushes until Lestrade’s fisted hand breaks into splayed fingers against the curve of his knee. He blinks and almost regrets it, on the edge of pulling back again until the devil in his blood takes over, demands more and demands it so fiercely he cannot deny himself.

Lestrade only lets out an exhale, searches Sherlock’s eyes for burning seconds; looks hurt and disappointed and welcoming simultaneously. He tilts his head to consider it (and there is very little hesitation there) wets his bottom lip and smooths the palm of his hand an inch or two further.

“You don’t really want me”

Sherlock almost laughs at that except it’s true, a bit, and his lungs haven’t quite worked out the difference between a laugh and a groan yet. So he makes some kind of noise, moves again until Lestrade gets the hint and trails his hands up Sherlock’s thighs, to his hips; tugs and he falls right into him, legs knocking awkward and too long until he’s got one either side of the man, trapped and straining and digging into the plush cushion of John’s chair.

_John’s. Johnjohnjohn. No, no, don’t think of him and do this -_

“Yes. _Yes_ I do.”

_-  don’t think of him and do this, don’t think of me, do not do this. Do not do this Sherlock, please._

Sherlock shakes the thoughts away and dissolves them from his head with the cold of Lestrade’s fingers crawling under his shirt. Christ he still can’t see the buttons properly, but it doesn’t matter because the man beneath him can; pulls them open one by one until his marred flesh is bare and there’s an open mouth pressing against it, drawing wet paths that make him shiver and shake and want more than he’s wanted for a long, long time. Things aren’t spinning anymore but they’re very, very fast and Sherlock waits until Lestrade has put his tongue on every centimeter of exposed torso before he takes it into his mouth; messy and hard and he still, _still_ has to bite at those lips until tangy copper replaces the taste of John’s words in his mind.

Lestrade moans at the pain of it and Sherlock’s teeth fall to his neck, the rough of hastily shaven skin grazing his cheek. He feels the rumbling of want in the man’s throat so he licks it, counts the pulse of it against his palette and realises how wrong it is - how long it's been since he's had that taste on his tongue, the salty sweet of his friend's skin, how long Lestrade has waited for this and how messed up they will both be afterwards (how fucked they already are).

It should be a deterrent.

Instead Sherlock starts to undress him. He rocks into Lestrade’s lap and makes work of the coat and jacket that he’s still wearing, pulling at whatever barrier comes between him and hot skin. In the jacket he finds Lestrade’s wallet, keys, phone, lets them all drop from his hand carelessly and thud to the floor, then his gun - Sherlock takes it in his palm, has his teeth at the man’s earlobe and all kinds of bad sounds vibrating just above him; fingers the trigger and drags the cold barrel along the fabric of the arm rest, across his own folded calf and hip, counts his ribs with it and runs it through his hair (once, twice) -

Lestrade looks at him through hooded eyes, fixes his gaze until Sherlock’s focus, then sucks the hollow beneath his jaw and keeps sucking until the gun drops to the floor.

“Do you want me to pretend to be him,”

Sherlock squeezes his eyes shut so hard they water but he can’t stop now; takes Lestrade’s hands and places them on the curve of his arse, uses his own to flip the buckles on their belts and fumble with zips until he can coordinate. When his vision swims back up he finds the face before him flushed and needy and _understanding_ , the question still on his lips and in flames between them.

“I could call you amazing,”

Lestrade takes over as the words hit Sherlock’s chest and motions him to lift. He obeys, lifts his hips so the fabric can slide over his skin and he’s left naked and obvious in the man’s lap.

“I could call you brilliant,”

One hand circles his cock and moves, so lightly that he arches into it like some hopeless starved creature. Sherlock moans and this time his own voice is not unusual and alien but loud, clear, the breaking of a wave against the cliff rocks bordering his skull. _More_ he commands, focuses intensely on making his own palm wrap around Lestrade; strokes and teases, takes to it like it’s all that matters - no, but genius needs an audience and the hissed expletives gracing Lestrade’s mouth are proof, filthy guilty proof that makes Sherlock as turned on as it does sick.

“Bloody, fan - _tastic_ ”

With the hitch in those words, the staggered breath, Sherlock can almost imagine it’s John’s mouth seeking out his collar bone, John’s teeth leaving marks on him and if he tries - if he really, really gives into it - Sherlock can _feel_ John’s heartbeat, punching a rhythm in the air hitting his exposed body.

Lestrade is close so Sherlock says his name because he knows it will work. Breathes it once, _Greg_ , twice, a muddle of times in the shell of his ear until there’s mess on his hands and stomach. The man beneath him curses and curses, body shaking and rolling through the last of ecstasy. All is sweat and tangy, the smell of dirt is overwhelming.

There are several seconds where nothing happens and in those moments doubt and guilt and everything ugly Sherlock now knows about himself creeps in, stings across his bare skin like nettles.

“Sherlock Holmes,”

There must be something he’s missed because Lestrade is looking at him with apologetic eyes and a misery that runs so deep Sherlock could get lost in it if he so wanted. He tugs at the trousers gathered around his knees, attempts to cover the obscenity of his body still hungry -

“The best and wisest man I have ever known”

Then Lestrade’s mouth is around him, hot as hell, his tongue flicking and sucking, and Sherlock finds himself grateful, arches his hips and moans his name now because he can’t help it. When he comes, there are fingers tracing careful patterns on his thighs and he can see the tiny beads of sweat breaking along the back of Greg’s neck; they remind him of rain and tears and all the time that has dripped so quickly away from him.

Neither of them moves further than the sofa. Greg stays for hours, they drink water and sit there until Sherlock can recite the name of every client he’s seen since the wedding. Until the sun creeps across the carpet and they can both look at each other again.

 

 

//

 

 

When Janine kisses him, he imagines stubble. He thinks of Greg and his hands, his conjured tongue and teeth the only thing that stops him from vomiting. John is locked somewhere else; he’s too far gone and the pain of those thoughts are like a bloodied hole opening in his chest, spreading disease through his veins.

Then he gets shot, and though the wound is very real it does not kill him.

Sherlock wonders if he should have let it.

 

 

 

-


End file.
